Archives

This archive lists all resources related to recruitment, retention, compliance, enforcement, and diversity efforts within the construction trades. These documents can be browsed by title or searched by using your computer’s finder (Cntl F for PC or Command F for Mac).

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FilmsHammering It Out
A film by Vivian Price
2000, 54 minutes, Color, DVD
Order No. W01708
“This spirited documentary spotlights the experience of women in the building trades, specifically those women involved in the Century Freeway Women’s Employment Project in Los Angeles. Framed by the story of a community-initiated lawsuit that resulted in hundreds of women getting trained to work on a billion-dollar freeway project, the film evolves into a primer on the feminist issues of equality, identity, and changing gender roles. Powerful testimonials by the women workers tell stories of the often unspoken gendered specifics of discrimination in the building trades: sexual harassment at the jobsite; negotiations about childcare and worker benefits; and the translation of affirmative action policy to the traditional practices of contractors and the historical conventions of the male worksite. The film demonstrates the importance of providing opportunity, embracing equity, and abandoning sexist traditions which deny talented women workers the right to support their families on a par equal with men. It also serves as a cautionary tale that warns that unless laws, policies, and conventions are changed, women workers may be forced out of their chosen professions, like the Rosie the Riveters, by bias and expediency.” Joseph Boles, Northern Arizona Universityhttp://sohstream.csudh.edu/price/hammering_it_out.mp4

Transnational Tradeswomen
A film by Vivian Price
2006, 62 minutes, Color, DVD, Thai, Chinese, Tamil, Urdu, Japanese, Subtitled
Order No. W07911
Inspired by organizers at the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, former construction worker Vivian Price spent years documenting the current and historical roles of women in the construction industry in Asia – discovering several startling facts. Capturing footage that shatters any stereotypes of delicate, submissive Asian women, Price discovers that women in many parts of Asia have been doing construction labor for centuries. But conversations with these women show that development and the resulting mechanization are pushing them out of the industry. Their stories disturb the notion of “progress” that many people hold and show how globalization, modernization, education and technology don’t always result in gender equality and the alleviation of poverty.

Celebrating a range of women workers – from a Japanese truck driver, to two young Pakistani women working on a construction site in Lahore, to a Taiwanese woman doing concrete work alongside her husband – this film deftly probes the connections in their experiences. In a segment exploring the history of the Samsui women in Singapore (Chinese women who were recruited as construction laborers in the 1920’s until they lost their jobs to mechanization in the 1970’s) unique archival footage and interviews with surviving Samsui offer an importation perspective on the historical and global scope of women workers’ struggles.http://sohstream.csudh.edu/price/transnational_tradeswomen.mp4

Two short films:
In My Own Words (1992) about the first African American Journeylevel electrician in Los Angeles International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Nesthey Crudup.
Second is Faces of Tradeswomen, short profiles of two plumbers and two electricians.http://sohstream.csudh.edu/price/neshfaces.mp4‬

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Women into Construction Project, Be Onsite: a project that places women in all areas of construction from manual trades to graduate construction professions and offers women various short construction courses, CSCS training/testing, and apprenticeship opportunities on sites across London.

Women’s Economic Security Act: a Minnesota law that requires state contractors to report on pay equity within their workforce, expands unpaid family leave and paid sick leave for employees, and establishes protections for pregnant workers in need of reasonable workplace accommodations.